February 28, 2005

Geeking out with Ed Sim

This week I had the chance of catching up face to face with buddy, fellow VC blogger and co-investor Ed Sim, from Beyond VC fame. I voted for Beyond VC as one of the most consistent VC blogs (by the way, has anything happened with the Fast Company poll ?).

We talked about our respective areas of interests and why I had decided to focus my venture consulting practice on early stage consumer Internet and search plays, and how we saw the social media world evolving. And how much time we spent on our respective blogs (like it is 3:30AM and I am still editing this post).

Before long, we were talking about gadgets and I got my phone out to buzznet Ed. Ed had read my post about the "Scoble phone", and I gave him a quick demo. Ed has opted for the Blackberry 7100, which is a fine professional phone, but lacks the camera and the MP3 player.

At that time, Sam Mohamad - the CEO of Metapa (I visited Ed in their office) - who admitted that he is a gadget "freak". He has opted for the Treo 650 as a phone, though he also has an MPx 220, but had something very cool to show us: a Vaio U series. Now how cool was that (here displaying Software Only)... Via CNET:

The Vaio U's 5-inch SVGA, or 800-by-600-pixel resolution, touch screen
stretches over a 6.6-inch wide, 4.3-inch high frame and can be used to
display videos and pictures. The mini machine can also play music, and
to that end, the company will bundle it with headphones and a remote
control, as well as its SonicStage
music software and photo and DVD-viewing applications. Buttons at one
corner of the machine will enable users to rotate the screen's
orientation and to zoom in and out.

Given that it boasts fairly typical notebook PC components--including a
1.1GHz Intel Pentium M 733 processor, 512MB of RAM, a 20GB, 1.8-inch
hard drive, Wi-Fi and Microsoft's Windows XP Professional
operating system--the Vaio U can also perform standard PC duties, such
as sending e-mail. Consumers can also use it like a tablet, operating
via its stylus, and taking down handwritten notes. Sony includes a
fold-up keyboard for typing longer documents.

I had a chance to play with this great-grand-son of the Apple Newton (in form factor). It is definitely too big for a PDA, and the screen was too small for a full blown laptop. But as a casual "on-the-go" laptop, why not. Though it is not for me, I was glad to be able to try it out.

Comments

Everybody says 6630 is the best phone around now. one thing i really like about 6630 is the muvee editor that comes in it. Most people are like me - shoot videos but never really watch them. Don't ask me why, but maybe because most videos, i mean raw videos are not very interesting. But the muvee editor changes all that, by editing my videos AUTOMATICALLY! Using very easy to use interface – just select the style and say go – you can edit the video that you made into a 9 second long video – perfectly edited with special effects – and send that to your friends and family. Video editing on phones equipped with cameras!! Very interesting indeed!